Archive for the ‘Racing Life’ Category

THIS WAS OUR WELCOME HOME SIGHT WHEN WE RETURNED FROM TENNESSEE. WE WERE SURE THE PLOW HAD TAKEN OUR MAILBOX OUT AS IT HAS DONE MANY TIMES BEFORE, HENCE THE REASON IT IS CEMENTED SIX FEET IN THE GROUND! WE HEARD LATER THAT A CAR HIT IT, NO INJURIES REPORTED —

I can not believe that it has been so long since I posted. It always takes me a bit to catch up with our Door County life after we have been in our other “home”, Tennessee. It is a different pace down in the south and so coming back to the fast pace of running businesses and getting back to home-schooling here in the north is always a shock to my system, and family for that matter. Rick was fishing within days and our caretaking business went into full gear at the same time. I came home with a horrible sore throat which I dealt with for two weeks before going to the doctor. Some amoxocillin made all the difference.

Within a week of getting home we were hit with a doozy of a snowstorm. At least twelve inches fell with gusting winds which made huge drifts on the highway and driving very dangerous. What? You mean you don’t have a wood stove sitting outside your back door? I am tempted to haul it to the side and cook in it now and then when the weather gets hot. It is really rusty from the snow but would probably still be useable for a couple years for backing…. hmmm we’ll see!

With Rick fishing we had our first fresh fish meal in months. My family never favors the same taste so I makes fish in packets with everything from plain old salt and pepper to lemon pepper and dill and lemon. It tasted SO good. There is story behind this meal. It was a Wed. and I texted Rick in the morning asking him if he would bring his love ( that is me!) some fish for supper. He responded in a text Tom?? I, being not so text savvy replied Tom who?? He gave up on texting and called me… He was saying TOMORROW — the scalers were not being used and so he did not want to dirty up the machines for a couple of fish. I reminded him that tomorrow would not work because we had Bible study. i told him that was OK and I would make something else, told him I loved him and hung up. As I did I knew that I would be having fish for supper—– 🙂 Sure enough. I had to be gone in the afternoon and came home to find fish in the fridge!. He told the girls to tell me ( teasingly) that I was a brat 🙂 All I know is that I am loved and it thrills my heart that my husband desires to please me when he is able. Those fish tasted the best I have had in years, seasoned with love!

Besides getting all of the above mentioned things going, it is also race car season! Here are Rick and his crew getting the car going and putting the frame together. After all these years of racing I learned a few things in the last month. Such as, when he said he was buying a car, he did not mean a car with a an engine in it, just the frame. I call that getting ripped off! Also, when he buys the seat for the car, it does not include the seat belt, or safety harness. Seems cheap to me!

We have had an issue with birds hitting the windows around here. I would blame it on my windows being too clean but THAT is not the case here at the Johnsons, no siree! I came home from a music practice and was quickly told to keep it quiet and not to make any loud noises. Annie, our in-house animal lover had rescued a bird that had hit the window. These things only go one of two ways….. this one went well as when I checked in the bag I saw the bird hopping around looking out the screen window and trying to communicate to me that it was ready to leave this mock bird hospital! Annie gloved herself and went out to deposit the bird which immediately flew away. Good thing!

One of our good friends flew out from California for a few days and invited us out to dinner to a very fancy place. John, the husband, invited the girls along which was a great treat for them. It was a four course dinner and the girls enjoyed eating delicious foods that they had never tasted before. The night was fun and we were so proud of the girls conversation and manners as they openly shared their thoughts with our friends. Wonderful fun, and don’t they look lovely?

Last Saturday Melody performed before a professional violin player who judged her and also gave her pointers on her playing. We were so proud of her, she did a beautiful job. It was so fun to hear the different instruments and when a young man played the cello my heart was stirred to pray for a cello. I have always wanted to play the cello. We will see. God does love to delight His children doesn’t He? THe lady playing the piano is Melody’s teacher and she is a very sweet had happy lady.

Even though the judge looks tough in this picture, she was so kind and sweet, very good with children.

Sweet beautiful women of God, just a joy to hang around with and be with.

Sunday was the celebration of Rick’s Aunt Ruth’s birthday. We went to the care center where she lives and sang to her and visited with the Nelson family who were all there as well. Such a nice time. Aunt Ruth is animated and told us that she was waiting for her rich man to come into her life! She is always entertaining… telling us who of the other patients drives everyone crazy and who she thinks can’t be trusted.. We were glad that we could go and be with her, she is an amazing women. Her sister to the right is the sweetest lady who loves our family and my father. I always enjoy my moments with her as well.

Door County is beautiful, the spring sunsets are vivid and capture our eye every evening. It is good to be back into our routine and with lots of planning and scheduling we should be able to run the caretaking business without losing our minds! I am always reminding myself that God is a God of order, it is His way and He knows best. Living daily in His order for our lives brings peace…. and joy!

These are friends of ours from Wheaton, the Bodetts. They are good friends and I will write about the excitement we had with them later.

I grabbed these pictures as a professional photographer was taking them. I really like this one. They were taken right in front of our boat and dock. This was after the Labor day fish boil down at the sheds.

We ate in the shed where Rick stores his race-car and so Annie jumped in to prove to her father that she could race it next year. This was more than a little entertaining for the crowd! We will see about her racing, she has to get a license first! Annie started a picture taking session as some parents brought their children to hop in the seat and take a picture with Rick. One little guy jumped in and landed with his head hardly past the bottom of the steering wheel. He was so cute. Thankfully Rick never started up the engine which the boys would have loved but would have cleared the shed and the shed next door as well!

Friends and family, it was like Old Home night with all the folks from Gills Rock! We had so much fun visiting, playing the Quarter game, which I won a number of times!!!

Kristi, Annie, Alyssa and Big Jim, Alyssa’s Dad.

Rick wanted his race taped. I offered but he decided that Jason would do a better job. WHAT! just because people have to take Dramamine to watch my videos doesn’t mean I can’t still do the filming!

There’s our guy. Number 8 for the original members of our family. Some day we will be in the double digits I am sure, although I do not know if Rick will still be racing then! I am thinking that 50 sounds like a great number of family members for the future. 🙂 No pressure children!

We had another first on Saturday night! Mandy took Kristi and Annie into the pits at the race for the first time, and they had SO much fun! The rules are that you have to be 18 to be in the pits unless you have signed permission from your parents. Rick signed them in, but I do not think he thought it totally through before he did. Rick has always said that it is hard to have his beautiful blonde daughters in the pit because:

#1 It distracts the guys in his pit crew

#2 It distracts the guys in ALL the pit crews in the their row

#3 It distracts Rick as he has to deal with guarding his daughters from all the other distracted guys in the pit area who start to circle our space!

Despite all that, I think he enjoyed having them there. They got to hang out with their Uncle Randy who was manning the pit for the night so that was a bonus.

Rick and his lovely blondes at the track!

Even in black and white, these girls have stunning eyes!

When the girls were younger I would sew for them matching dresses and they loved it. For the last 10 years matching clothing has become a NO-NO and they are mortified if they are even wearing the same colors when they get dressed in the morning, and especially if they are heading into public! Well, that all changes when their Dad’s race team is the design and THEN they wear their matching outfits with great pride!

Annie, our future race-car driver, making sure the helmet and the attitude fits! I think she could do just fine! Notice that she balances the muddy helmet with big BLING on her finger, she is a girly-girl to her core, that’s how we like them in the Johnson household! 🙂

Rick, girls and Danny R. ( Rick’s good friend from Frog Station) who could not pass up a chance to get into a photo with Rick and his girls.

Here is what happened involving Danny that night; In the final race of the night Danny, who is a very good racer, was in 3rd place when Lemioux another hot shot racer bumped into him causing Danny to fall way behind and finish way out of his normal rank. The girls said that when Danny got into the pits he jumped out of his car and Danny and his brother Scott went after Lemioux and it started a brawl. Mandy told her sisters to stay put as all these pit spots are pretty close together, and to NOT make eye contact with anyone, in other words try and blend with the race-cars??? The girls said that their Dad pulled into his pit and came flying out of his car to defend Danny but the owner of the track had shown up and the two pit crews had started to separate.

Personally, I have always thought that there is just way to much testosterone in that pit area! On the other hand, maybe it is good for adult men to get that teenage testosterone driven macho-man feeling now and then. Maybe it gives these great guys the sense that life is not so mundane and calm as they would like to believe it is! Good fun, no one hurt, and the real vengeance will be found next week on the track where the action is supposed to take place 🙂

Blessed to have girls who love and support their Dad, and a husband who is loyal to his core and will defend his friends in an instant!

What a whirlwind of a week we had. It always takes me a few days to get back into life when we return from Tenn.. I did manage to get my suitcase emptied and put away within 3 days which may be a record. We returned on Saturday and Sunday at church our church family had a heavy, but much needed service. We have had hurts in our congregation regarding our getting a new pastor. It was a hard couple of weeks as a candidate was voted down which our search committee had worked hard to bring to our church. Although a hard time, God has done some tremendous work…. and we had the first real and honest vote that we have ever had in our church. People prayed and voted according to their convictions. Much junk surfaced in our church as God did some cleansing, in ALL of us. What is so cool, so God, so Providential, is that we have had a wonderful interim Pastor. Pastor Doug has been here for 8 months and we have grown under his teaching and leadership, and many of us have grown to love him, very much. He has grown to love us as well and after the last two weeks he has seen us completely…. 🙂 The good news is that this gracious man still loved us. So, yesterday after the morning service the search committee made an announcement that they had a new candidate to present to us and it was …… yes, Pastor Doug. The row in front of me, namely our teens all turned to look at me with absolute delight. I was in shock, a mixture of absolute delight and unbelief that my prayers since last April would be answered.

Last night we had an open question time with Pastor Doug and his beautiful wife Twila. It was a sweet time of theological and life questions. How different than the night a few weeks ago when we questioned a complete stranger. Pastor Doug, on the other hand, spoke to us with knowledge of who we are, our strengths and weaknesses. He knows the community and has a vision for how we can affect the area for Christ. It was beautiful as warm friendly laughter filled the sanctuary last evening. There was much joy, and, Pastor Doug shined with his wisdom as he answered us and shared his heart. He also told of how he came to feel led to this church over the months that he ministered…… a tale of how I believe Pastor’s should be called to a church, like a courtship of hearts between the people and a pastor. Beautiful! The vote will be next Sunday after church, we are so excited.

This past weekend we had Mandy and her boyfriend, Justin up for an overnight. Justin brought his son Tanner along and we had such a nice time. Justin worked with Rick on the race-car as he enjoys racing and is very knowledgeable about cars and engines etc.. THey accomplished much and Rick was very pleased. We had supper together and then just hung out and visited. Sunday we all headed to church and after church Matthew arrived and a friend from up the road came over and we have our annual Irish Corn-beef boiled dinner. It was so good! Matthew had requested carrot-cake for dessert and it turned out beautifully. Matthew was delightful and fun as always and even let me take some pictures!

Later in the afternoon Pastor Doug and Twila stopped in for a visit and some folks left and we had tea and just enjoyed a wonderful Sunday afternoon…..

God is good and He is sovereign. Pastor Doug mentioned that to me a few times last weekend and these will be the thoughts for this week.

Wednesday was fair day at our house. Rick races, it is free to get in, rides are $1, so all combined, it gives us lots of reasons to go.

WE packed our car with friends and Jeni and Jason filled their car and off we went.

We have a tradition of ALWAYS starting the fair by taking a picture with the cows. Everyone was bucking and fussing about it in my car. I called Jeni and reminded her to meet us at the cows first and she started fussing. Then, Jason, the hero of the day got on the phone with me and said,”Don’t worry Mrs. Johnson, we will be there at the cows.” What a guy. You will notice that some of the faces in the pictures don’t look all that thrilled, but it’s the tradition that counts!

Then off to the rides, wow, do we have crazy girls! They all went on the wildest rides, even Melody headed onto some spinning rides. Of course, the best was the tilt-o-whirl which we did numerous times.

We headed to the annual smorgesbord of buttered corn, pizza, buckets of french fries and cheese curds, Thunderhill burgers and nachos. Believe me, it was NOT the rides that had everyone feeling sick when we left. Oh well, it’s the fair!

Due to a torrential down-pour we had to wait an hour and a half for the races to start while they used County graders to scrape the track. We played cards and talked and did a few more rides until they gave us the go ahead to enter the grandstand.

Jason reminded me about the quarters and he came prepared, what a guy! We have always played a little game at the track, basically to keep our attention while we wait for friends or Rick to race. It is a form, um, well, errr, um,, well, kind of like betting!!! I know, I know, it sounds SO much worse than it is. As the cars enter the track everyone stands up and picks their car and the shouting begins. Melody has a book that she brings and I use to write down each person’s number. It really makes it fun to cheer on your car or take lot’s of kidding when yours starts to smoke or spins out. It is low winnings as I have never won more than $3, but boy do we have fun.

There was a nice gentleman and his son sitting in front of us and he enjoyed our antics. When I saw Rick’s heat lined up I leaned forward and told him “Sir, my husband races in the next heat and we all cheer for him, but he has five daughters who are VERY loud in their support of their father, I just don’t want you knocked out of your seat!” He laughed and asked if it was the fisherman so he must know Rick some how. Rick did OK, but there were big-dog racers in from all over the state to compete for the $1,000 dollar purse and they just roared around the track, literally taking my breath away with their speed.

We had brought some first timers with us and it was fun to see their excitement at the roar of the engines and the excitement of dirt track racing.

We headed out of the track at 11:00 but due to still having a few tickets left, we did a few more rides and then headed home. I have been known to like to close down the party! It was late when we got home, but other then missing our traditional cotton candy and funnel cake, it was a VERY good year!

One of the most precious moments of the day was running into A and B our foster boys from this winter. They recognized us and smiled, although they were shy. They were with their parents and I spoke to the dad for just a moment emphasizing to him how precious these boys are and how valuable their worth. Although it was just a moment, it did my heart good to see them.